here is the set up I did for the 444??? barrel. this blank was a non turned blank and the bore was not only out of center by a mile it ran at a angle through the blank. the od of the stub was like 1 1/4 .

the muzzel end is on a drill bit shank and driven with a dog. the breach is on a live center. I was able to turn the OD true to the bore. It damm near shook the lathe apart the barrel was to ut of balance that I ended up hose clamping a lead wheel weight to it to help balance it out. I got it down to 3/4" except for the shank so I can now chuck it directly and put the barrel through the spindel and chamber it. the barrel is long enough that I can profile it and not hit the dog Ill just cut it to length last.

12.7 Schuler Short reamer. If you don't run it into the barrel quite all the way, you can get proper chamber depth for a .50 Beowulf.

Lee .50 caliber Minie ball mould. That's .500 diameter like a .50 Beowulf or .50 S&W, not .512 like almost all other .50s. Hollow base, meplat nose, three grease grooves. The Beowulf isn't a high velocity cartridge, so I expect plain old lead should do just fine.

Factory Beowulf cartridge in an ex-USAF M-16 mag. There is apparently a fair amount of variation in the fronts of various mags; they're all just fine with pointy .223s, but the blunt Beowulf snags at the front. A quick kiss with the die grinder ought to take care of things. Also, the inside edges of the feed lips are fairly sharp, and put big scratches in the side of the cartridge. I'll have to zip a Cratex tip over them to knock the burrs off. Again, it probably didn't matter with a .223.

I haven't started on the magwell yet. I plan to just bend it around a steel mandrel, weld up the seam, and weld it to the bottom of the AK receiver. I haven't found any clear pictures of the AR mag release setup yet, though.

The electrician came out to rewire the house today, so instead of working on the house, I got a little shop time. I spent most of it cleaning up and milling some cutterhead bits, but I did get time to drill all the holes in the Yugo shoe for my bending tool. I was looking at the Yugo flat and the AKM shoe, and it found I only have to chamfer the shoe back to the magwell dimples; the long chamfer back to the AKM axis pin dimples isn't needed since the thicker Yugo flat doesn't have any dimples.

The Beowulf is the same length as a 7.62x39, and will feed in a stock-configuration AK receiver. The .30-06 requires moving the barrel forward and the center support back. I'm assuming Pookie is going to stretch his magwell to the rear since he's using a PSL bolt.

I started this project knowing a lot less about AKs than I do now. I knew the Beowulf would feed through an AR mag, and that AR mag adapters existed to work in AKs. Well, Galils, anyway.

This morning I played with the AR magazine and my assembled Romanian rifle. The AR mag fits snugly into the Romy latch cutout. Same with the Yugo trunnion I have for the new rifle. The mag sits a lot lower than I like; the nose of the Beowulf sits a bit lower than the nose of an x39 in an AK mag.

The feed ramp will have to be fettled quite a bit to guide the flat-nosed Beowulf into the breech. Right now, the corner of the case catches on the sharp edge of the guide.

Then came the unpleasant surprise - the fat Beowulf won't actually fit between the lower locking lugs! I'd kindasorta assumed the magazine sat higher than it actually does.

The lug space is .477, the Beowulf is .535 around. That's .057; call it .060-.062 to get a little clearance.

The clearance will have to come off the lower left lug, which fortunately isn't used for anything with a two-lug bolt.

The other surprise was how little of the case head is engaged by the bolt when it's stripped off the magazine. Depending on the fit between the bolt and the top rail, it could be as little as .040". Fortunately the rim on the Beowulf only drops .005" or so as the nose angles up when the cartridge is stripped from the mag.

Blurry photos:
mag wedged up into Romy receiver
front of cartridge snagged on bullet guide
fat cartridge can't make it between lugs

Please elaborate TRX. Were you thinking of slightly re-locating pin also? Or threading barrel since your a machine master? I know the magwell will be a tad wide, but I was thinking of adding shims to both sides of my Romanian .223 mags, rather than messing with magwell mods.
did we have same thought same time???

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